


Wearing Thin

by teeceecee



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Dark!Lance, Galra Lance (Voltron), Hypnotism, Kidnapping, M/M, Psychological Torture, Team as Family, Torture, Worried!Keith
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-11-09 01:56:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11094492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teeceecee/pseuds/teeceecee
Summary: Violet-grey eyes warps in his perception, and imperceptibly, his gun is pointed at Keith's chest, the barrel digging into the soft flesh unprotected by his armor."Don't do it," Keith whispers, "You're stronger than this, don't let him in your mind."Lance cocks his head, a flash of something substantial eclipsing his unnaturally bright purple eyes. Keith lets himself hope. The look was gone as soon as it came, and blood-lust pervaded.He squeezes the trigger.---Lance gets captured by Lotor and is subjected to the Druid's current favorite form of torture - hypnosis. He comes back to the team but...not quite himself. Keith doesn't believe the changes in front of his eyes until it's too late.





	1. Replaceable

Pain shoots down his arms, freezes into his temples, clenches his insides with a white-hot dilemma that left him hunch over. The crackling electricity subsided, enough for a beaked-masked face to loom over him, clicking in an alien tongue. Lance doesn’t know what is said, but an understanding is reached.

The pain cripples him once more, his body straining, nearly unbolting the bonds that strap him to the metal table. He cries out, a needle jabbing into his forearm, flaying his veins, and he swore he tastes blood in the back of his throat, mixing with the bile he lets sputter past his bruised lips.

“…experimentation done, right?”

“Almost, sire.”

“Good, let him rest for now. We’ll start the hypnosis tomorrow.”

A clawed hand clasps his face, dragging him to the light, purple eyes coolly appraising his battered brown skin. He slides a sharp nail down the length of his jaw, and Lance whimpers – a mistake on his part – as the nail pierces his cheek, a trickle of warm liquid seeping from the open wound. He resolves to hold in the blood-curdling scream.

“Pretty Paladin,” the voice cooed.

“Prince Lotor, your father has summoned you,” a guard calls from the door, his armor almost blinding Lance. Everything was too loud, too bright, his nerves on fire, drenched in ice, dredged through rusted spikes.

The prince nods. “Tell him I will be there. I’m just bidding my skyling goodnight.”

Military footsteps clap down the hallway, fading back ever so slowly to the standard pin-drop silence.

“Goodnight, Paladin,” Lotor croons, and Lance hacks up a spit ball in his direction, watching in grim satisfaction as it lands squarely between his horrid eyes.

“ _Buenas noches, hijo de puta_ ,” he whispers back, relishing for a moment the dark look that flits in Lotor’s eyes.

The prince snarls and makes to rake his claws over his face when the Druid intervenes, its soft voice filtering through the Galra’s hatred.

“My Prince, test results show that if you push the skyling more, his treatment will be ineffective,” the whirring whisper lulled Lance’s mind, “you want him to be loyal to you, not despise you.”

Lotor drops his hand, a contemplative look marring his sharp features. Lance thought he looked familiar, something utterly humanoid about him. He was positive that most Galras didn’t have markings on their faces.

“Fine. Book me for his earliest treatment,” Lotor glances over at him, lips twisting into a cruel sneer. “I want to be there when he breaks.”

Lance narrows his eyes, despite the swelling in his right from where Lotor had socked him, the swollen bump making it hard to focus his vision on anything for a second too long.

Light drains from the room and he is left in the darkness, groaning and slumping on the cold surface. Sleep evades him, as it had for the past – was it one week? Time stands still in the stark room, the purple accents lending a menacing tone that flips his concentration on the corporeal.  

He wonders for the millionth time where his teammates were, if they had found him. Lance knew he had activated his tracking signal, the one which Pidge help fit into his armour. His protective garments, however, were currently floating in the middle of an abandoned space station where he had been abducted, the signal probably destroyed. He doesn’t know where he is, much less where the others would assume he would be.

Lance sighs, swallowing his panic as he concentrates on his family, both in space and back home. He tears up at the thought of his parents, and his mind travels to the Paladins, stopping frequently on the images of Hunk, his best friend who most probably had given up hope of finding him alive. He thought of Blue, how lonely she must be feeling, and if they took the choice of finding someone else to pilot her. The thought alone sends a wave of agony on his already battered spirit, and he lets the tears fall.

 _Replaceable_. Lotor uses that word a lot when the Druids found out his fears through a particularly harrowing mind reading session that left Lance unconscious from the agonizing violation.

Replaceable. Useless. Never taken seriously.

Lance lets a sad chuckle squeeze through his aching throat. He never did expect his inferiority complex to run that deep.

He doesn’t delude himself with the possibility that Lotor wouldn’t dispose of him. He held no viable or valuable information on Voltron. Lance was only a lone sharpshooter, content to stay in the side-lines and complete his missions from heights, away from the heat of the battle. He wasn’t strong like Shiro, adept at fighting like Keith or brilliant in engineering like Hunk and Pidge.

Sure, he found his _thing_. But even his _thing_ was significantly of less importance than any of his friends.

Sleep comes eventually, sure and soft, carding through his hair and kissing his eyelids, promising a brief respite from the pain he knew with dull certainty was coming in the morning.

*

It starts with soft footfalls, a device strapped to his head as he's still shaking off the last vestiges of sleep, and a sharp point of pain in his inner arm.

Lance wasn't given a chance to fully wake when he was submerged in darkness once more, the panic pressing hard on his chest.

His mind was a gilded bird cage, rusty at the edges, cramped in the top and bottomless. A spark of light behind his eyelids, mind contorting to expand, and he woke to a white room, the familiar figure of his mother standing in the middle.

Only he didn't know where he was and that woman who turned to face him, her soulless eyes unceasing was definitely not his mother.

 

 


	2. Signs of Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance begins his trials and Keith is dead set on tracing the Blue Paladin's last signal.

“Mama?” Lance breathes, the hope in his voice ridiculously painful. “Mama, I’ve missed you.”

“You disappoint me, Leandro,” his mama starts, shaking her head. Her kind eyes were replaced with voids, her usual gentle smile twisting into a gory rendition of a snarl. “You break my heart, over and over again.”

He didn’t believe his ears. “What have I done?”

Lance made to reach for her, to draw her in his embrace, the childish part of his psyche praying that one simple touch from his mother might end all the pain he’s been forced to endure. She evades his grip, tutting.

“I trusted you with the family’s future and you took the easiest way out.”

“I had to!” he screams, clenching his chest. “I couldn’t just sit back and watch the universe crumble!”

“But didn’t you ever think of your family?” she scoffs. “No, that’s right. You only think about yourself and that’s as far as your concerns go.”

“Mama—“

“Your brothers and sisters don’t believe you’re dead and your father has given up hope—“

“Mama—“

“I don’t know what to say to you anymore, Leandro. Mijo, you were always my bright star.”

“Mama, don’t go,” he sobs. “Don’t leave me.”

“Like you left us?” his mother says, lips twisting bitterly into a smile. “You should’ve thought about that before you left the galaxy.”

Lance lets out the tiniest whimper as his mother leaves, and suddenly, he’s back on the experimentation table.

“There, there, blue cub,” Lotor croons, appearing in his sight. “I know your mother may hate you, but I’ll always love you.”

“Y-you…y-you…”

“Hush. The serum is just wearing off and I bet you’re wearing thin, aren’t you?”

When Lance didn’t reply, Lotor smiles. He gestures at the nearest Priest, mouthing, “He’s ready.”

The Priest walks in front of him and sets sharp claws on his temple. Lance stills out of instinct, the heavy pants he emits changing into groans as the pain crept in. It was mild like a headache, growing steadily in agony.

Lance’s vision whites out as the pain meter is suddenly amped up, and he can no longer see anything, feel anything. His breath is a mixture of bloodcurdling screams and whimpers, the images flashing in his mind contorting into darker versions of one another.

He sees the Paladins, their smiles turning into sneers; his family, snarling at the mention of his name; and Keith springs in his mind, sudden and sharp. The other boy has his arms in a fold over his chest, and he mutters: “You’re nothing but my replacement.”

His cries shatter the process and Lance disappears into the dark once more, nothing but the heavy sound of his laboured breaths accompanying his descent.

*

“What do you mean your tracker isn’t showing where he is?” Keith growls.

Pidge fiddles with the knob once more, a harried frown on her face. “I told you, I’m not picking up his signal.”

“You fitted his suit with it. Don’t tell me you can’t detect his signal!” Keith was on the verge of losing his cool, hands balled to fists. He wanted to hit something, break things apart. Lance had been missing for almost two quintants and they were no closer to finding him than they were yesterday.

Pidge returns his sneer. “Watch it, Keith. You’re not the only one who wants to see him safe.”

“Keith, Pidge’s trying to her best of her ability,” Shiro cautions. “We shouldn’t be jumping at each other’s throats; we need to maintain calm.”

“Yes,” Allura chimes in and Keith about breaks his composure.

“Don’t you dare say anything,” he whirls to the Princess who struggles not to flinch at the sight of his bared teeth. “You were the one that insisted he went inside that hallow planet on his own to scan the area with Blue. With. No. Backup.”

“We were stretched thin!” Allura yells, her fists balling to her side. “The Galra had us scattered! I did what I had to do to ensure everyone was safe, and Lance volunteered to help!”

“If you had just waited for a few more _ticks_ —“

“Enough,” Shiro says loudly, quietening the room. “There is no use in fighting. Lance has been kidnapped and that’s a fact. We can either sit here all day pointing fingers or we can put all our effort into finding him. I would prefer the latter.”

Pidge breaks the quiet with a soft clear of her throat. “Okay, so I managed to re-calibrate his signal and pass it through an untouched domain and he’s currently…”

She trails off, and extends the screen, widening the holographic surface to pinpoint Lance’s exact location.

“He’s in the Healia galaxy? That’s impossible,” Allura utters, going to her controls and pressing a few keys. She zooms in on the coordinates, and Keith could see why she was in disbelief.

The planet was in ruins, debris floating above it atmosphere, spinning on its orbit. There was no living way Lance would be there.

And yet, they had to try.

“We have to go and search for him,” Keith says, eyes narrowed in determination. “Before it’s too late.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies if this took a long time, i was settling my overseas exchange and i really did mean to post this sooner ฅ(๑’Δ’๑)
> 
> find me on tumblr @klance-bound (yes, i changed my url huehue)

**Author's Note:**

> this fic came out of nowhere but boy oh boy did i really want to see Lance's dark side and him finally taking control of a situation. don't let the summary and tags confuse you, there's definitely more to come.
> 
> also, find me on teeceeceecee @ tumblr and don't be afraid to holler! (pls holler i'm lonel)


End file.
